The Indians crossed the Hudson and ravaged New Jersey and Staten Island.

Within three days a hundred inhabitants were killed, one hundred and fifty made captives, and the estates of three hundred utterly desolated by the dusky foe.

In the height of the excitement, Stuyvesant returned and soon brought order out of chaos, yet distant settlements were still broken up, the inhabitants in fear flying to Manhattan for safety.

To prevent a like calamity in the future, the governor issued a proclamation ordering all who lived in secluded places in the country to gather themselves into villages "after the fashion of our New Engand neighbors." After some desultory fighting on the frontier, Dutch and Indian hostilities in a great measure ceased, and for about ten years, beyond the threatenings of the English on the one hand and the Indians on the other, New Netherland enjoyed a season of peace and prosperity.
The New England colonies, with the exception of Rhode Island and a part of the Mason and Gorges claim, had, in 1644, formed a confederacy.

The New England Confederacy--the harbinger of the United States of America--was simply a league of independent provinces, as were the thirteen states under the "Articles of Confederation," each jealously guarding its own privileges and rights against any encroachments of the general government.